


Rebecca, the Kallters, and the Mysterious Beating

by Centeris2



Category: Star Stable
Genre: Gen, I know his name isn't Nanook anymore but I still call him that, also I wrote this several months ago, and forgot to post it here apparently? oops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 22:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Centeris2/pseuds/Centeris2
Summary: After leaving her trial, Rebecca goes to Dino Valley for solitude, only to be disrupted by a strange noise coming from the frozen lake. The Kallters tell her a bit of their history.(Following one of the "slaughter Rebecca's feelings" tumblr prompt lines)(The previous part is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7866757/chapters/17966164(guess who found stuff I forgot to publish here but posted on tumblr? it me!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> mystical-nature-nerd-deactivate asked:  
> PLS DONT LEAVE ME AT THAT LIKE THIS FOR YOU HAVE NOT SLAUGHTERED REBECCAS FEELINGS BUT YOU HAVE BRUTALLY SLAIN MINE  
> The previous part is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7866757/chapters/17966164

Lucky for Rebecca, she and Midnightwarrior did not have to go all the way to the Kallter camp in order to get some warmer clothes, the AAE camp happily supplied her with more than enough snow gear to brave the frozen valley. 

The biting wind gave her something else to think about, she desperately didn’t want to think about the trial the Druids has just put her through. Midnightwarrior, however, was antsy and clearly still thinking about it. Rebecca could feel him stepping higher and harder than he normally did, twitching and swishing his tail in agitation.

Up and down the winding path they went until they turned off and and settled in a snow cave overlooking the lake. Midnightwarrior calmed down, or at least went still, when Rebecca removed his tack and unpacked her backpack and the saddle bags. She wasn’t sure how the Druids did it, magic no doubt, but she was always amazed by how much fit into her bags.

A blanket and quart of oats for Midnightwarrior, a few trips out for firewood, and a dash of gas to get the wet wood burning later and the pair was settled in. 

Midnightwarrior merely flicked an ear toward Rebecca when she screamed in frustration.

“I can’t believe them!” she shouted and flumped onto her bedroll on the ground, hands covering her face as she groaned. 

“After everything! They just! Gah! Maybe if they actually trained me I wouldn’t have been captured in the first place!” she raged, rolling around on the ground a bit to burn off the anger. Midnightwarrior snorted, reaching over to her and blowing on her hands. She opened her fingers so she could look through them, gazing up at her horse.

“What am I supposed to do? I’m not going to be as useful to them if they don’t train me, and I want to be able to control my powers,” she grumbled and reached up to rub her horse’s face.

“I just wanted to ride horses and go to college,” she complained. He blew warm air on her face, lipping at her nose and making her giggle. 

“I can’t not help them. I don’t want the world to end, and if I can help stop it I should, shouldn’t I? I can’t damn the rest of the world because the Druids are assholes,” her fingers stopped tracing his cheeks, hands resting on him.

“I just wanted to ride horses. I didn’t want to kill people,” Midnightwarrior lifted his head, Rebecca sitting up and wrapping her arms around her legs.

“I don’t even know if the Dark Core workers count as people. We know that they brainwash people, maybe none of their employees really have free will. Would that mean I was killing unwilling innocents or was I freeing them? But if they were there on their own free will how much do they really know about who they were working for? How many of them just work for Dark Core because it is a big employer and they need a job? How many are actually malicious? Some of them seem to be mean, like the thieves and some of them clearly don’t care about toxic pollution. But how much of that is individual choice and how much is Dark Core corrupting people? Maybe nasty people are attracted to working for Dark Core because of the power and fear around them. But Lisa never mentioned her dad turning evil, and he has worked for Dark Core since they moved to Jorvik years ago. What if I killed innocent people?” Midnightwarrior rubbed his nose on her head. She had told him all this before, and he still didn’t know how to ease her guilt. 

Rebecca jerked up from her sleep, Midnightwarrior snorting at her and raising his head to look at her.

“Did you hear that?” she mumbled, Midnightwarrior’s ears twitching and swiveling to try to find the noise. 

A pulse made them both look toward the lake. Rebecca stood up, Midnightwarrior following up from where he had been on the floor curled around her. 

Rebecca did not get on Midnightwarrior, and they walked side by side as they made their way down to the frozen lake, following the noise. It reminded Rebecca of a heartbeat, a pulse emanating from under the ice. 

Midnightwarrior looked at her when they were standing on the ice, wondering what she would do next. He knew what she had to do. He wished he could tell her what he heard and smelled. But all he could do was nudge her. The stallion knew what was down there, he could hear the beating heart, he could smell the rotting and ash. But Rebecca was limited, she could not sense like he did, humans relied too much on their eyes.

“I have to go down there, don’t I,” Rebecca patted his neck. He nudged her again, calm. She took that as a yes and took off her jacket.

“Keep this warm,” she said with a grin, leaving her jacket over Midnightwarrior’s back before she looked into the crack in the ice.

“What could go wrong?” she muttered before she jumped in.

The cold hit her, shocking the air out of her lungs, her body burning from the cold before she felt numb. This was an incredibly stupid idea.


	2. Chapter 2

In many ways this was going just as Rebecca had expected: she was drowning and freezing under the ice of the frozen lake. 

In other ways she was surprised by what was under the water: glowing kallstones shone up at her from lower in the lake. Also she thought she would die a bit faster, or at least go into shock and pass out after a few moments in the lake. 

But she wasn’t dead, or she didn’t realize she was, so she started to swim down to the light beneath her, the pulse calling her forward. Glowing stones looked up at her from the bed of the lake, and as she reached for them the disturbance from her hand made the dirt move, swirling around her before floating away and leaving the shining rocks. Druid runes carved into rock greeted her, kallstones fixed to the smooth stone. Rebecca recognized the four large seals, one of each circle of magic, but did not know the meaning of the dozens of other runes crisscrossing the rock. More curious was the different slabs of stone that appeared to be locks.

Despite the numbness Rebecca touched the stone. It burned her, sucking all the heat from her hands with intense cold. It wasn’t just heat that was drained from Rebecca, she felt energy leaving her as well. Or maybe it was the fact that she was drowning. But she needed to get inside. Whatever was locked inside was important. The beating shook through her and the water around her, going faster as she pressed her hands against the lock.

She needed to get in, something important was inside. 

It was deathly cold, her feet echoing through the chamber. Was she moving her feet? There was pink and blue and purple light, magic from their runes saturating the air. There were pictures, runes, stories, spells, written into the stone all around her. Rebecca couldn’t make any of it out, it was all blurring together. But it led her forward to a column against the back wall, runes and lines down the center and sides. What was inside that column? The beating was coming from the column, pounding, desperate, racing. The light around her was going dim, the beating in her ears becoming the only thing Rebecca could focus on as she approached the column, hand outstretched. 

 

Her lungs burned, water rushing, air flooding in, arms on her, shouting, voices, Midnightwarrior was worried.

Someone was saying her name. A voice. Man’s voice. Accented. Nanook? 

Rebecca opened her eyes and her mouth, coughing up water and gasping in air. She couldn’t feel her legs, or her hands, or her skin. There was just the pounding in her head, in her chest. They didn’t want her to sleep. A logical part of her knew if she fell asleep the hypothermia would kill her. But sleep would silence the pounding. 

Warm air rushed over her face, whiskers and the scent of oats waking her up. It was time for her to wake up, Midnightwarrior wanted her to wake up.


	3. Chapter 3

Sedna and Nanook watched Rebecca in silence, unsure what to say. They didn’t understand why she would jump into the frozen lake, but they had gotten her out and taken her up to their outpost, covering her in furs and keeping her close to the fire.

Midnightwarrior stood nearby, in the lean-to with the fjords, watching the three humans around the fire.

“There’s something down there,” Rebecca muttered after warmth had returned to her and she was able to process what she had seen. 

“A stone door, and a chamber. What’s down there?” she asked, looking at the two Kallters. They glanced at each other, clearly knowing something.

“Secret,” Sedna said, sharing a look with Nanook.

“I heard it, whatever it was. Some sort of pulse, like a heartbeat,” she pressed. It wasn’t much of a secret if it was that loud.

“There is great danger there, very powerful,” Nanook explained a bit, but didn’t give much away.

“Is there a way I can find out what it is?” Rebecca asked. Nanook and Sedna whispered to each other.

“It called you?” Sedna asked, cautious, a bit fearful even.

“Yes, I guess,” Rebecca thought back to the beating that had drawn her under the water. 

Sedna and Nanook looked at each other again, Sedna with a pleading look. 

“We must discuss with our leaders,” Nanook said.

“Did I like, stumble upon a god of yours?” Rebecca asked, Sedna’s look getting even more begging toward Nanook. 

“Please respect that it is not ours to share,” Nanook begged, Sedna huffing and rolling her eyes, annoyed to have lost the silent argument.

“Okay. You said you would discuss it with your leaders, if they decide I can learn, will you tell me?” Rebecca asked and Nanook nodded. 

“If we gain permission, we will tell you everything,” Nanook promised, offering his hand. Rebecca shook his hand, and then Sedna’s. She hoped they would decide to trust her and tell her.


	4. Chapter 4

Rebecca found herself coming back to Dino Valley, checking every nook and cranny trying to find some passage down there. She couldn’t forget the chamber under the water, she couldn’t forget the pounding through her entire body. 

Midnightwarrior stood with her at the entrance to Dino Valley, looking at the waterfall.

“That’s fed from the lake, which means there is a way in through the water. Somehow,” Rebecca muttered and Midnight snorted. She was right, but she’d have to climb a cliff just to get to the mouth of the waterfall, and it might not even have a tunnel that she could fit through. It looked like there was a cave mouth way up there, but the inside could be entirely different.

“I wonder how the water gets up there,” Rebecca muttered. 

They looked at another angle, looking at the waterfall feeding Valedale lake. Again, there was no obvious way up, and no way to know if the cave was passable. Rebecca decided she may need to invest in rock climbing lessons, but rock climbing and then swimming against the flow of water seemed an impossible task.

Which led her up the path to the Dark Core site, now abandoned. An unfinished tunnel led into the side of the mountains. Dark Core had wanted something in Dino Valley, maybe it was the kallstones, maybe the Stonecutter’s Vault, maybe the portal that connected to the Secret Stone Ring.

Or maybe they wanted what was under the ice, under the water. 

“Kallstones can be quite explosive,” Rebecca muttered, standing in the tunnel, feeling the back of the wall where the boring had stopped. It might not be the wisest method, but if she could make a tunnel big enough for her she may be able to pass through. She had the pick axe, she could make holes for the kallstones to go into that she could then detonate. Or would that just set the explosion off in her direction? Tunneling with explosives wasn’t exactly something the average young adult knew these days. 

“Kallstones, something to charge them, a drill would be good. Where am I going to get a drill that can get through stone?” Rebecca muttered, making a checklist in her head, “rune wand to set them off. Book on tunneling and boring. Different explosion type, I’ll have to experiment…”

She continued to mutter to herself as she mounted up on Midnightwarrior, the horse shaking his head and snorting.

“What?”

Midnightwarrior pawed the ground, snorting again.

“Water, I have to figure out how to get around the water. Ugh,” Rebecca groaned and flopped her head back, “tunneling from here only works if I go under the lake completely, or if I find a path that leads to it. But they must have… they made that somehow. Was it built before the water was there? How long has that lake been there… or did they swim down?”

Midnightwarrior shook his head, not helping.

“So also look for magic that lets me breath underwater and not freeze to death. Maybe something that lets me make an air bubble. Or, go the non magic route and get scuba gear. I don’t know how scuba gear works, I’d need lessons to learn how to operate it. Ugh.”

On second thought maybe looking for the path would be an easier.

Unfortunately, her poking around looking for secret passages in Dino and Valedale attracted attention.

“What are you looking for?” Elizabeth’s voice startled Rebecca, making her blush in embarrassment at being caught pushing against the mountain stone. 

“Uh,” Rebecca stared at Elizabeth, deer in headlights until she figured out how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t make her sound crazy.

“Dark Core was trying to get into Dino Valley, so I thought there must be something there that they wanted, and since it’s right by Valedale I figured whatever it was might have a secret druid passage,” Rebecca explained. She wasn’t lying for once, she just wasn’t doing this because Dark Core wanted it. Elizabeth smiled pleasantly, a bit surprised.

“I am glad you are concerned about Dark Core,” Elizabeth said though what she meant was something more along the lines of ‘I’m glad you are trying to protect druid property.’

“Is that like, where the secret stone ring is? Or Fripp’s chambers?” Rebecca asked, not thinking for a moment that was what was down there.

“Not quite,” Elizabeth said, and surprised Rebecca by continuing, “Fripp is not our only friend who has sometimes needed to retreat to rest and recover in a safe place. When the time is right, they will return. Please, do not disturb their rest.”

Elizabeth was pleased that Rebecca nodded and immediately left, taking it as a sign that the young woman was growing to trust the druids once more.


	5. Chapter 5

A safe place. That’s what Elizabeth called it.

Rebecca knew it was a lie, she had seen the outside.

Safe places did not lock from the outside. Whatever was inside that chamber was not meant to come out until released, no doubt when the druids found it worth doing. But whatever was there, the Kallters knew of it too. She only hoped as she and Midnightwarrior climbed up the slope to the Kallter outpost that they would tell her what. 

“Rebecca!” Sedna exclaimed, the most welcoming and excited Rebecca had ever seen her.

“I was hoping you had a chance to talk to your leaders,” Rebecca explained, Sedna and Nanook’s expressions answering her before she could even ask. 

“Please, join us,” Nanook offered a spot at their fire. Midnightwarrior took up his position with the fjords, listening.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Rebecca promised as she sat down with them.

“Thank you for keeping our stories a secret,” Nanook said with a smile before looking at Sedna.

“We were brought to this island, Anil Tanax, you call it Jorvik, by Siirliq Arnaq. She saved us, and so we regard her much like a goddess, with great respect and reverence. But a great tragedy happened, and her companion, Siirliq Aappaq, was murdered, Siirliq Arnaq dying with him. Their death led to the Silaarsorpoq, a great destruction that nearly destroyed this land. The land still bears the scars, the lake and the river it feeds created by Siirliq Arnaq’s tears, we call it Tarneeruppoq. The Silaarsorpoq was prevented from destroying everything at a great cost, leaving Tarnersorpoq behind. Tarnersorpoq is now asleep under the ice, and she has not awoken since in thousands of years,” Sedna told the story, using many words from her native language that Rebecca did not understand.

“Do those names translate to anything, by chance? Tarners… Tranersop-”

“Tarnersorpoq. It translates to ‘walks after death’,” Nanook explained, pronouncing the word slowly.

“So like, Tarnersorpoq,” she said the name a few times until she got it right and earned the approving smiles of the two Kallters, “is like, what was left of the one who brought you to Jorvik, Siirl…?”

“Siirliq Arnaq, and yes,” Sedna explained.

“This sounds kind of like Moana,” Rebecca muttered, “is there by chance a way to restore her heart?”

“No, Siirliq Aappaq is deceased,” Sedna said sadly. 

“That was her heart?” Rebecca asked, eyebrow raised.

“In a sense. They created one being,” Sedna explained, bringing her hands together and lacing her fingers to demonstrate her point.

“So then why did I hear a heartbeat?” Rebecca asked, the two Kallters looking at each other.

“We don’t know,” Nanook answered honestly.

“And Tarnersorpoq, is she by chance sealed down at the bottom of the lake?” The Kallter pair glanced at each other, confused.

“Sealed by the Keepers of Aideen?” That made them go a bit pale.

“I saw the seals and symbols, whatever is in there the Druids want to stay in there, and make sure no one else gets in,” Rebecca looked at them carefully, watching them.

“The druids were the ones who defeated Tarnersorpoq,” Sedna confirmed.

Rebecca leaned back and crossed her arms, “I only have two more questions.”

“They are?” Nanook asked, wary.

“One: is it Aideen?”

They nodded.

“Two: how do I get in?”

“You can’t!” Nanook protested.

“She brought you to Jorvik, I think she brought me too. Why else would she call me to where she rests?” 

There was a painfully long silence, Sedna and Nanook having a silent argument.

“I will consult our leaders again, there may be a way,” Nanook promised.


	6. Chapter 6

When Rebecca returned to the Kallters a few days later she was armed with everything the druids had ever given her, hoping something would help her get past the seals if she had a way down.

“Our ways are secret, but we have permission to help. Here,” Nanook presented her with a bag. Rebecca opened it, finding a coat, a necklace, and an ice pick. 

“So...?” Rebecca looked up for an explanation.

“The coat, to keep you warm. The necklace, to still your breathing, and an ice pick to get in,” Sedna explained.

“Go to the place you jumped and use these items. Please return them to us, we do not want others to learn of them,” Nanook requested and Rebecca nodded.

“Thank you, I will return as soon as I can,” she promised, mounting up and leading Midnightwarrior to the lake.

“Okay, got Kallter coat, wearing the necklace, have ice pick, rune wand, a vial of Aideen’s tears, and the fragment of Aideen’s light. I guess this is it,” Rebecca muttered and looked at Midnightwarrior, giving him a pat on the nose.

“Be back in-”

“Well hello, Rebecca. I had hoped you would respect the wishes of the druids,” Elizabeth said, Avalon and two other robed druids with her. Rebecca knew what they wanted.

Rebecca shrugged and jumped into the water before they could say anything else. She knew what she had to do.

The water didn’t knock the breath from her again, the necklace shining a soft blue light. The cold didn’t make her freeze, the coat keeping the cold away. She still wasn’t sure how the ice pick would work, but she had to swim down first. 

It was easier to reach the bottom without fighting cold and the desire for air, and she touched the stone covered in seals. Well, they said the ice pick would get her in. She slammed it into the rock, the rock and water rippling, a bubble forming around it, an air pocket forming. With the water gone, or perhaps because of the crystals in the ice pick, the crystals in the stone shone bright, as if turned on, the seals lighting up.

“Okay, now… something,” Rebecca muttered and pulled out her fragment of Aideen’s light, putting it against the stone.

Nothing happened.

So she tried shining Aideen’s light, focusing on the stone, willing it to open up to her. There was a sudden pulse, silence turning into a rapid beating, trying to get out, responding to the light.

A crack formed in the stone, unraveling like a seam, the bright seals rippling and flashing angrily before they were ripped apart and Rebecca squeezed her way inside the opening. There was so much to see now that she was inside, stone and metal and crystal and so many strange lights, even wires and cables. But that column, at the end of the chamber, had gone silent. The silence made it all the more mysterious, drawing Rebecca closer. She could inspect the room later, it was the column that was important.

Her footsteps echoed in the chamber, and she became painfully aware of the smell and feeling in the air. It was stale, and smelled of ash and rot. This was not a place of healing and rest.

She touched the column, the image of a sleeping woman carved into it. She had tears on her face, a look of despair etched into the stone. Rebecca felt around the column for a release before she tried the light once more. Nothing happened, so she tried the rune wand. 

The face in column opened its eyes and mouth, turning into a face of horror and rage, and the column split open, cold mist escaping.

“Fuck…” Rebecca muttered, covering her nose, a cold chill going down her spine. She took a step back, trying to get away from the smell of a decomposing body. There was a pile of bones, vaguely still in a sitting position as the body had sunk down as the tissue broke down, the cold and stasis keeping it from decaying completely. There was still tissue and hair, not yet broken down by time and bacteria. 

“You can’t be…” Rebecca murmured, pinching her nose and creeping forward, wanting to touch the corpse to make sure it was real, but the smell was enough to confirm it. 

No, druids were tricky, perhaps-

She reached out and touched it, pulling away when the horrible feeling coursing through her confirmed that it was Aideen, and she was dead.

“You have no-!” Avalon’s voice carried to her in the empty chamber, the druids appearing from their own secret entrance. His words died, fading into an echo and then into nothingness, replaced by the sound of water dripping on the stone floor.

Rebecca looked up at them, tears streaming down her face, overcome with grief and loss.

“You left her down here,” Rebecca muttered, the druids gasping, one throwing up, at the sight of Aideen. Elizabeth fell to her knees, tears welling up in her own eyes and she muttered into her hands, prayers that this wasn’t real.

“She… Aideen was…” Avalon tried to form the words.

“Safe? Healing? Recovering? She looks much better!” Rebecca snapped, “Elizabeth said this was a safe place, that the person resting here would return. Does it look like Aideen is coming back?!” Rebecca shouted now, rushing to her feet and getting between the druids and Aideen’s corpse.

“Can’t you leave her alone!? You already left her here to die, now leave her here to rot!” Rebecca screamed, feeling as though she was suffocating.

“We must confirm-” Avalon tried again to form words.

“Confirm what!? What, you think Dark Core got down here and switched Aideen’s body? And then put the seals back up using your magic? If they had Aideen they would have made their move by now, they wouldn’t need The Light Ceremony book because they’d have a practical goddess!”

“Please, be respectful,” Elizabeth begged, hating the noise.

“That’s rich, coming from the ones who locked her down here and let her die,” Rebecca snarled and left the way she came. When she removed the ice pick the bubble of air around the entrance began to close and Rebecca swam up to the surface. She felt the water rumble as the druids hastily closed the door before the chamber was flooded.

Midnightwarrior greeted her with warm air from his lungs and a gentle nuzzle. Now Rebecca understood what was down there, she had learned the truth.

“It was unsuccessful?” Sedna looked disappointed when Rebecca returned to the outpost, face puffy and red from crying, tears still spilling out and she kept sniffling.

“No, it-it-it-” Rebecca gulped for air, trying to not break into hyperventilating, “she’s dead.”

“Dead?” Nanook gasped, Sedna covering her mouth.

“No… she…” Sedna muttered.

“I ca-ca-ca-came-” Rebecca gulped again, stopping and breathing hard, unable to speak and instead offering the bag of tools given to her back to the Kallters. Nanook walked over and accepted it, still in shock.

“I- I have- I can’t-” Rebecca covered her face with her hands, trying to get a grip. The druids had killed their own goddess. Even if Aideen somehow lived on in an immortal goddess way what goddess would continue to help the those who had killed her? Surely Aideen was not as merciful and loving Jesus Christ and God of the Christian religion. This wasn’t some sacrifice to redeem humanity, the Kallters had told her already about the destruction Aideen left after her companion was killed, or what was caused by what was left of Aideen. 

“Thank you for your news, please, go and mourn in your own way, but do return to us. We wish to know more when you are willing to share,” Nanook touched her leg, making her look down and nod at him. Sedna said nothing, turned away and fighting back tears of her own. 

Rebecca and Midnightwarrior managed to get just outside Dino Valley before the pain became too great and they had to stop, Rebecca sobbing and Midnightwarrior hanging his head low. They felt like they were dying, and hope and warmth in the world sucked out of them and leaving them as dry as that corpse in that tomb under the water.


End file.
